This study examines if Facebook, one of the most popular social network sites among college students in the U.S., is related to attitudes and behaviors that enhance individuals' social capital. Using data from a random web survey of college students across Texas (n = 2,603), we find positive relationships between intensity of Facebook use and students' life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation. While these findings should ease the concerns of those who fear that Facebook has mostly negative effects on young adults, the positive and significant associations between Facebook variables and social capital were small, suggesting that online social networks are not the most effective solution for youth disengagement from civic duty and democracy.

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Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook Use and College Students' Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation

Este libro describe un importante conjunto de habilidades clave que aumentan el aprendizaje mas profundo, la preparacion para la universidad y la carrera, el aprendizaje centrado en el estudiante y el pensamiento de orden superior. Estas etiquetas incluyen habilidades cognitivas y no cognitivas, como pensamiento critico, resolucion de problemas, colaboracion, comunicacion efectiva, motivacion, persistencia y aprender a aprender. Las habilidades del siglo XXI tambien incluyen creatividad, innovacion y etica que son importantes para el exito posterior y pueden desarrollarse en entornos de aprendizaje formales o informales. Este informe tambien describe como estas habilidades se relacionan entre si y con las habilidades y contenidos academicos mas tradicionales en las disciplinas clave de lectura, matematicas y ciencias. Educacion para la vida y el trabajo: Desarrollar conocimientos y habilidades transferibles en el siglo XXI resume los hallazgos de la investigacion que investiga la importancia de tales habilidades para el exito en la educacion, el trabajo y otras areas de responsabilidad adulta y que demuestra la importancia de desarrollar estas habilidades. en la educacion K-16. En este informe, se identifican caracteristicas relacionadas con el aprendizaje de estas habilidades, que incluyen desarrollo profesional docente, curriculo, evaluacion, programas extraescolares y extraescolares y centros de aprendizaje informal como exhibiciones y museos.

Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century

Recently, scholars tested how digital media use for informational purposes similarly contributes to foster democratic processes and the creation of social capital. Nevertheless, in the context of today's socially-networked-society and the rise of social media applications (i.e., Facebook) new perspectives need to be considered. Based on U.S. national data, results show that after controlling for demographic variables, traditional media use offline and online, political constructs (knowledge and efficacy), and frequency and size of political discussion networks, seeking information via social network sites is a positive and significant predictor of people's social capital and civic and political participatory behaviors, online and offline. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x

Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation

American elections depend substantially on the vitality of the national economy. Prosperity benefits candidates for the House of Representatives from the incumbent party (defined as the party that controls the presidency at the time of the election), whereas economic downturns enhance the electoral fortunes of opposition candidates. Short-term fluctuations in economic conditions also appear to affect the electorate's presidential choice, as well as the level of public approval conferred upon the president during his term. By this evidence, the political consequences of macroeconomic conditions are both pervasive and powerful. But just how do citizens know whether the incumbent party has succeeded or failed? What kinds of economic evidence do people weigh in their political appraisals? The purpose of our paper is to examine two contrasting depictions of individual citizens – one emphasizing the political significance of citizens' own economic predicaments, the other stressing the political importance of citizens' assessments of the nation's economic predicament - that might underlie the aggregate entwining of economics and politics. Ours is an inquiry into the political economy of individual citizens.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0007123400002544

Sociotropic Politics: The American Case

A growing chorus of scholars laments the apparent decline of political participation in America, and the negative implications of this trend for American democracy. This article questions this position – arguing that previous studies misdiagnosed the sources of political change and the consequences of changing norms of citizenship for Americans' political engagement. Citizenship norms are shifting from a pattern of duty-based citizenship to engaged citizenship. Using data from the 2005 ‘Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy’ survey of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS) I describe these two faces of citizenship, and trace their impact on political participation. Rather than the erosion of participation, this norm shift is altering and expanding the patterns of political participation in America.

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Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation

A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen. By Cliff Zukin, Scott Keeter, Molly Andolina, Krista Jenkins, and Michael X. Delli Carpini. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 253p. $19.00. Should we be really worried about declining public engagement? Or should we accept that it is merely changing shape? This book describes substantial alterations in the ways Americans are involved in public life, particularly younger citizens, and analyzes a wide range of empirical data with the goal of understanding the implications—both negative and positive—of these emerging patterns of participation.

/pdf/a-new-engagement-political-participation-civic-life-and-the-no7rq6z3ws.pdf

A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen

The candidate evaluation literature has emphasized the contribution of both candidate characteristics and voter characteristics (e.g., party identification) to candidate appraisals. But the literature on attribution and sex role stereotypes suggests that women candidates may be evaluated differently than their male counterparts. This paper presents the results of a survey of 98 voters in which we explored the relationships among gender role attitudes, voters' attribution of leadership traits, and support for male and female candidates. The surveys were conducted in Syracuse, New York, during the 1990 campaigns, which included three male-female races. Our results substantiate the hypothesis that when candidate information is sparse, gender role attitudes are consequential in the initial evaluation of lesser known women candidates. Gender attitudes are important factors in candidate favorability when the candidates are women challengers. Secondly, we found that voters had a tendency to attribute particular ...

Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits

* This paper owes a great debt to my students in the National Opinion Research Center Training program, who did much to rekindle my interest in ideology. I would also like to thank Sidney Verba and Kenneth Prewitt for their intellectual contributions at various stages. The first draft of the paper was written while I was a research Fulbright Fellow at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. I would like to express my appreciation to the Fulbright Foundation for support during this period and to the University of Leiden for supporting the research. Additional support for myself and for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant GS 3155 and the Twentieth Century Fund. The data reported in this article come from seven separate surveys and the organization and presentation was a mammoth job in data management. This task could not have been accomplished without the efforts of Carol Ann Lugtigheid, Eric Lugtigheid, John R. Petrocik, Jaap Rozema, and Jaap van Poelgeest.

Mass Belief Systems Revisited: Political Change and Attitude Structure

This paper examines the extent to which the sex differences in political participation (specifically participation in election campaigns) have narrowed over the last twenty years, and finds that the change is due to a particular group of women-those employed outside the home-who now participate at a rate equal to that of men. The possibility that sociodemographic changes in this group of women account for their increased participation is examined, as well as the connection between feminism and participation and the role of the 1972 election in mobilizing working women.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2110538.pdf

Working Women and Political Participation, 1952-1972

Fraternal organizations, both familiar ones such as the Elks and Moose, and less familiar ones, like Ladies of the Maccabees or the Workmen’s Circle, played a number of important roles in nineteenthand twentieth-century American society. Skocpol and other social scientists have argued persuasively that these organizations provided important sites for a vibrant, cross-class civic life.1 In this book, Beito examines the means by which these societies provided insurance beneats and other socialwelfare services to their members. The Freemasons and similar societies had provided sickness and funeral beneats to members since preRevolutionary times, and developed a strong presence in United States cities during the latter part of the nineteenth century. During this period, both local and national benevolent societies and life-insurance orders provided both social functions and a “safety net” for many working people, including immigrants, laborers, and many African-Americans. Beito arst describes the values and goals of these organizations. He examines in detail the operation of two orphanages (run by the Loyal Order of Moose and the Security Beneat Association [sba]), the provision of medical services by organizations to their members (referred to as “lodge practice”), and the history of two black fraternal-run hospitals in rural Mississippi. He also details the debates and controversies surrounding the moves of the federal and state governments toward increasing regulation of insurance and health care, as well as the effects that these changes had on the fraternal organizations’ functions. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State is a fascinating window into these efforts by various organizations to provide “cradle to grave” help and support to their members. Beito argues convincingly about how important for women and blacks the opportunity to learn entrepreneurial, anancial, and leadership skills was. He also offers evidence to counter the argument that fraternal organizations, like public and private charities, imposed middle-class values on the poor, by focusing on the extent to which those values (for example, self-reliance, thrift, self-control, mutual aid, and patriotism) were shared also by working-class organizations. The book is less satisfying as a comprehensive picture of the role that fraternal associations played in the transition to the welfare state. Beito’s methodology—in particular, his criteria for choosing organizations to study and the small number that he analyzes in depth—is not clearly outlined. It is difacult, for example, to evaluate his claims that societies were less exclusive and selective than is sometimes assumed without more demonstrations of the generalizability of his descriptions of the REVIEWS | 337

Kristi Andersen

Papers

A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen

Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits

Mass Belief Systems Revisited: Political Change and Attitude Structure

Working Women and Political Participation, 1952-1972

From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (review)